Phoenix Album

Birdman; 2002

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Much has been said of L.A.'s Warlocks that contradicts my late, unfavorable opinion of their sophomore release on Birdman Records.

"All due respect to The Hives, Clinic, and the Soundtrack of Our Lives, but the best garage rock I heard in 2002 came from this Los Angeles quartet, which tapped into the darker psychedelic vibes of the classic Nuggets bands, with a heaping dose of The Velvet Underground and Spacemen 3 added on top. Not for nothing does the album open with a song called 'Shake the Dope Out'." (Jim Derogatis, Chicago Sun-Times)

There is nothing, sad to say, that grabbed me about this record, a mix of calculated psychedelic garage and jaded indie rock that finds The Warlocks daringly aligning themselves with some pretty imposing ghosts of rock n' roll past in one breath:

"Imagine this: It's 1966, and you're at the Exploding Plastic Inevitable, in the Electric Circus, upstairs from The Dom in the East Village. The cavernous room throbs with pulsing strobe lights, while black and white scenes from Warhol's Chelsea Girl flicker on a freshly-painted rear wall. Onstage, The Velvet Underground are in the midst of a harrowing version of 'Heroin'." (The Warlocks' online bio)

Then refuting those very obvious influences with the next:

"I think that we live more in the 1980s. We are like The Butthole Surfers and The Flaming Lips back then. All that was what they called "College Rock." Those bands may have drawn from the 1960s. I don't think that we are going for any 1960s garage sound. You are going to get those comparisons that you would never expect. Just because we are on Bomp Records people make those comparisons. The label shouldn't dictate what people think about music. Unfortunately that happens sometimes." (Guitarist JC Rees, interviewed by Insound)

This is not Hear It Is or Hairway to Steven. The references to cocaine, the use of Hammond organs, sitars and high harmonies, and the painful, "Wow, we look like Jefferson Airplane!" live photos sure as shit brought the 1960s to mind, regardless of Rees' shpeal. Nowhere in the tired riffing, uninspired lyrics, and god-awful wankery on Phoenix Album did I hear a lick of the inspiration that makes The Flaming Lips and Butthole Surfers indie rock staples. What I did hear is a faceless, generic variation on the current indie rock obsession with minimal ancestors, in this case the late British invasion (The Animals, The Kinks) and the rough-around-the-edges garage rock of the Northwest (The Kingsmen, The Sonics), coupled with rigor mortis-stiff drumming and the most obvious elements of psychedelia, having more to do with fashion than fucking rock music.

Add to that insipid lyrics about "cool guitars" and "make-out sessions" ("Baby Blue"), written and delivered in a Wayne Coyne nasal whine by frontman and former Beck session musician Bobby Hecksher, and you've got perfect background music for a straight-to-video Janeane Garofalo movie, replete with feedback outros and fuzzbox strumming that can't decide whether to try on a paisley shirt, or a flannel and some Doc Martins. If The Warlocks are trying to make the old new again, to blend the most relevant elements of post-Beatles acid art-rock with a swaggering post-punk sensibility, they've managed to make the old absolute shit instead. They're competent musicians, but so are half the bar bands in America. Proficiency and idol worship do not a standout release make. But then again:

"The Warlocks are creating sounds and sights that have been long needed and long forgotten during these synthetic times. A powerful, hallucinatory world with amazing pop songs and addictive guitar mayhem anchoring the trip. Why the visions of Syd Barrett's Pink Floyd or The Exploding Plastic Inevitable were left behind is a complete mystery to me. When I walked into my first Warlocks show, it was like getting a fix that I had needed for years." (Dave Katznelson, Birdman Records owner)

So who do you believe, music fans? Let's put it like this: If a chorus of "Shake, shake, shake the dope out" and endlessly droning, spiraling guitar solos ("Inside Out", "Oh Shadie") are your ideas of a good time or a symbol of true musicianship, add two points to the Pitchfork rating above-- you've found another incredibly unoriginal band that's right up your vintage Vespa alley; if this kind of shit makes you fantasize about firebombing the nearest Fred's Guitar center, subtract two.